Sustainable: Electric car charging stations catching on

Phoenix on the River condo board member Mark Nissen grew interested electric cars after a few residents put down deposits on Tesla S models and wanted to know what the options would be for charging their vehicles.

“We want to learnwhat the best practices are for charging electric cars so we can avoid having all these cords lying around when they want to charge up,” he said. “We need to look at parking spots with chargers built in.”

Owners and developers of multifamily housing have begun to hear a clarion call from a small but growing number of tenants who want access to electric car charging stations. The Phoenix, 222 2nd St., even had one owner install his own charger to fuel his Tesla, Nissen added.

Mary Rippe, president of the Minnesota Multi Housing Association, said the organization worked with a local consultant on different approaches apartment and condo owners can take to provide electrical outlets.

“We’re not hearing quite as much demand since gas prices have come down,” Rippe said. “But it’s still a growing trend, and interest is high in electric cars.”

Charging stations are being added to many new condo and apartment buildings, she said, and adding that infrastructure during construction of parking garages is fairly simple. Retrofitting existing buildings is more challenging, Rippe said, although many options exist to adding new wiring to garages — or even exterior parking spaces — for charging stations.

The multifamily housing association tapped Jukka Kukkonen, the leading consultant for electric cars in the Twin Cities. Several building owners came to hear him speak at a recent luncheon sponsored by the Minnesota office of the United States Green Building Council and he’s worked closely with several on charging station projects.

Kukkonen, founder of PlugInConnect and coordinator of Fresh Energy’s electric vehicle program, created several websites to help explain how electric car infrastructure operates, including one filled with multifamily housing examples. All are available at PluginConnect.com.

Minnesota has more than 3,700 electric vehicles, he said, while the entire country has as many as 400,000. Once people buy electric cars, they love them, with surveys showing that 90 percent of owners plan to make their next car purchase another electric vehicle.

“People say, ‘Wow, this is much better driving experience than cars with internal combustion engines,’” he said. “People are hesitant to try new things, but we have reached a tipping point.”

There are several reasons for optimism among electric car promoters. Tesla saw more than 400,000 people pre-order the Model 3, a more affordable option at $35,000 than the rest of its fleet, which ranges in price from $70,000 to $105,000. In Minnesota at least 300 people waited in line to put $1,000 down on the Model 3 the first day orders were taken, Kukkonen said.

The fear among many would-be electric vehicle owners is that the vehicles have a limited range of 100 or so miles, but models being released next year can double and triple that amount, Kukkonen said. More manufacturers, including Ford, have electric models in production or being tested. And sales, while modest, have “taken off faster than hybrids,” he said.

The charging model

Electric cars can be charged in three places: public stations, a growing number which are available in the Twin Cities (see website www.plugshare.com for charging stations); the workplace; and home. Each location, he said, favors a certain level of charger, from simple to sophisticated.

The cheapest and simplest chargers are Level 1, which use 120-volt cords that come with the cars and can be plugged into regular electric outlets. Recharging a typical vehicle takes six to seven hours. This works well with vehicle owners charging at home in their garages (or apartment buildings) or, in some cases, at work, Kukkonen said. While that seems like a long time, most people charge overnight or at an office garage, two locations where they will be spending at least seven hours in one place.

Building owners pursuing United States Green Building Council certification must have Level 2, network-connected chargers. Level 2 chargers can cost up to $2,000 per unit to buy and install. They charge vehicles in three to four hours.

Finally, “fast chargers” take just 15 to 30 minutes, but cost substantially more and are generally employed for public uses — at public parks, at locations along the interstate and at other spots where people are not inclined to spend three hours recharging their cars, he said.

Building owners have options, he said. If they have no immediate need for chargers they can make a few spaces electric-vehicle-ready. If they decide to move ahead, they will have to work with an electric contractor to determine the cost of installation, whether they have the breaker capacity and how the program might be expanded to more stalls if demand increases.

Finally, building owners have to figure out how much to charge tenants. Metering every electric car owner creates extra expense and potential hassle, he said. A better solution is a flat fee, generally between $20 and $30 a month, which will more than cover the expense of the electricity, Kukkonen suggested.

The good news for commercial property owners and homeowners is that they can receive a federal tax break of up to 30 percent for installing electric vehicle chargers. There’s a cap of $30,000 from commercial buildings and $1,000 for homeowners. Considering the healthy incentive, there seems little reason not to add charging stations, he said.

One apartment owner who has stepped up to install chargers is Dale Howey, of Green Rock Apartments in Minneapolis. He operates eight buildings with 98 units around the metro region. A big supporter of sustainability, he installed five chargers and encourages both staff and tenants to buy electric vehicles. And, of course, he owns one himself.

“I think I’ve got a lot of people excited about what I’m doing with electric cars,” he said. “The charging stations are helping us attract people who want to live green.”

Kukkonen highlighted one other advantage of electric vehicles. They warm up quickly because, unlike gas cars, they do not depend on heat from combustion engines that take a while to warm up. An app exists that allows electric car owners to remotely turn on the heat. One day last winter Kukkonen was using an old app-less cell phone, so he called his wife, who was traveling in California, to start the heater. By the time he got to his Nissan Leaf, it was nice and warm.

Correction: A previous version of this story misspelled Jukka Kukkonen’s name.

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